I received the following question from Tony about his engine bearings.

I have a question on bearings rusting in helicopters. Specifically, my heli engine bearings never seem to give me any problems. My airplane engines, stored in the same environment and using the same 20/20 heli fuel seem to all corrode and rust up within 6 months to a year.

Is it because the airplane engines are stored with the engines level and the heli engines nose up? What could be the reason other than that? Bearing quality? I run O.S. engines almost exclusively. I run the fuel out of both types at the end of the flying sessions. It’s Cool Power and it advertises “no after run necessary”, which I take literally.

2 Comments

I sent this question into the OS engine product support people, and here is what they had to say.

Paul,

Thank you for your recent email. It is pure coincidence that one type is failing and not the other. Whether Cool Power advertises no after-run oil necessary or not, we recommend always using after-run oil after every use.

You can also reach our
product support technical team at 217-398-8970, or via fax at
217-398-7721.

Thanks for the help Paul. In the old days, maybe 30 years ago, we used to hang the fuselages of our planes nose down in our workshops. I think that was to have the oil drain on to the front bushings of those old engines. I also think the storage position of the heli engines has something to do with them not corroding. Heli engines have bearings, not bushings, and I think stored on their skids, the contaminates drain off the bearings. I guess the answer is to load up on after-run oil, but I don’t know of any heli pilots that do that regularly. Thanks again for checking with OS.